A Most Taxing Situation

Bali Tax Office Asks Jakarta to Double Staff Numbers

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(4/27/2014)

The Bali office for the Directorate General of Taxation is asking Jakarta to double staffing levels in order to optimize tax collection on the island.

Bisnis.com reports that the head of the Investigation, Audit and Tax Collection office for Bali, Ipen Hardi, claims that a lack of qualified staff remains a major impediment in maximizing tax collections.

In Bali the number of tax auditors spread across eight tax offices is 100 people. Moreover, the number of investigators in Bali is limited to only 5 staff to handle cases emanating from an area with 579,273 registered taxpayers.

Hardi told Bisnis.com: “In Bali we only have 100 auditors. Ideally, we need 200 auditors and 10 investigators – twice what we have now. This is needed so we can conduct more orderly investigations.”

A moratorium of new tax employees since 2012 has been in place while at the same time the work load of the tax office has increased. At the same time, new divisions of have been created at the tax office requiring the shifting of tax officials from existing divisions that are already understaffed.

Indonesia has 31,000 tax officials serving a national population of 240 million with a resulting ration of one tax official for every 7,700 people. By comparison, Germany has a ratio of 1 tax official for every 727 residents; Australia 1:1,000; Japan 1:1,818.